Federation spending $35 million to hire 100 people to expand Jew-hatred response

(Oct. 21, 2026 / JNS)

Federations across North America plan to hire 100 educational professionals to address antisemitism, expanding existing community-relations and advocacy teams through a $35 million initiative announced by the Jewish Federations of North America.

“The response to the Oct. 7 attacks created a real moment of reckoning,” Shira Hutt, executive vice president of the Federation, told JNS.

The initiative, called Frontline, will provide targeted grants to 120 local Federations, with support from more than 25 funders, according to the Federation. The funding is intended to help communities add staff to their existing teams while giving those professionals access to training, shared tools and expert guidance.

“At a time when antisemitism is increasingly affecting every facet of Jewish life, Frontline invests in the people, relationships and resources our communities need to meet this moment with a sustained, strategic response,” Hutt told JNS.

The new positions will focus on local and state government advocacy, K-12 and higher education and partnership with other religious and civic groups. Professionals may work with elected officials, school administrators and community organizations on issues affecting Jewish residents.

The initiative will provide grants to 120 local Federations, but the announcement did not detail how the 100 positions would be distributed among communities or provide an overall hiring timeline.

Some local grants have been announced separately. In Minnesota, the Minneapolis and St. Paul Jewish Federations received nearly $290,000 over two years to fund a director of labor and civic partnerships.

Frontline comes amid continued concern about Jew-hatred after the Oct. 7 attacks. According to FBI data cited by the Federation, Jews were targeted in 64% of religiously motivated hate crimes in the United States in 2025.

There were 1,528 reported anti-Jewish hate crimes that year, down from 1,938 in 2024, according to the data cited by JFNA. The 2025 total nevertheless remained the third-highest on record for anti-Jewish hate crimes.

Hutt said the additional staff would help Federations strengthen relations with civic leaders and advocate for Jewish communities.

“This additional capacity will bolster our efforts to proactively address antisemitism by strengthening relationships with civic leaders, improving our ability to advocate for Jewish communities and ensuring that Jews across North America can live openly and proudly as Jews, without fear,” she told JNS.

Frontline will also provide resources intended to help local professionals communicate about issues affecting Jewish communities and engage younger generations.

One component, Project Halo, provides strategic messaging guidance on issues including Jewish community security and support for Israel. Another, Student to Student, brings Jewish high-school students into conversation with non-Jewish peers. The Federation said that the program operates in 50 communities and has engaged more than 60,000 non-Jewish teenagers over the past three years.

The initiative also includes year-round professional training and One Mitzvah a Day, a platform designed to encourage community engagement and mobilization.

Julie Platt, chair of Frontline and the Federation’s immediate past board chair, said that the period after Oct. 7 prompted a reassessment of how Jewish communities approach civic engagement.

“In the aftermath of Oct. 7, our community was very disappointed to see that many people we thought were our allies stayed silent,” Platt said. “We learned the hard lesson that our civic engagement efforts must be more focused, more targeted and more outcomes-based, and that is exactly what Frontline is designed to do.”

Frontline follows LiveSecure, a separate $130 million Federation initiative focused on expanding professional security programs in Jewish communities.

The Federation said that the initiative helped increase the number of communities with professionally run security programs meeting its standards from fewer than 20 to more than 140 in four years.